The battle for the future of the Open Web is taking place as a new document model merges into a platform for highly graphical, interactive and information rich applications. Open source communities vie with dominant vendors Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Nokia and Google to stake out their claims as open source innovations collide with standards consortia and proprietary alternatives.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Yee-haw! E.U. sanctuary and rewards for NSA whistle-blowers. Mandatory warnings for customers of U.S. cloud services that their data may be turned over to the NSA. Pouring more gasoline on the NSA diplomatic fire.

All existing data sharing agreements between Europe and the US should be revoked, and US web
site providers should prominently inform European citizens that their data may be subject to
government surveillance, according to the recommendations of a
briefing report for the European Parliament.

The report warns that EU data protection authorities have failed to understand the “structural
shift of data sovereignty implied by cloud computing”, and the associated risks to the rights of EU
citizens.

It suggests “a full industrial policy for development of an autonomous European cloud computing
capacity” should be set up to reduce exposure of EU data to NSA surveillance that is undertaken by
the use of US legislation that forces US-based cloud providers to provide access to data they
hold.

To put pressure on the US government, the report recommends that US websites should ask EU
citizens for their consent before gathering data that could be used by the NSA.

“Prominent notices should be displayed by every US web site offering services in the EU to
inform consent to collect data from EU citizens. The users should be made aware that the data may
be subject to surveillance by the US government for any purpose which furthers US foreign policy,”
it said.

“A consent requirement will raise EU citizen awareness and favour growth of services solely
within EU jurisdiction. This will thus have economic impact on US business and increase pressure on
the US government to reach a settlement.”

Other recommendations include the EU offering protection and rewards for whistleblowers,
including “strong guarantees of immunity and asylum”. Such a move would be seen as a direct
response to the plight of
Edward Snowden, the former NSA analyst who leaked documents that revealed the extent of the
NSA’s global internet surveillance programmes.

The report also says that, “Encryption is futile to defend against NSA accessing data processed
by US clouds,” and that there is “no technical solution to the problem”. It calls for the EU to
press for changes to US law.

“It seems that the only solution which can be trusted to resolve the Prism affair must involve
changes to the law of the US, and this should be the strategic objective of the EU,” it said.

Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee, who buried himself in the sand to hide from police in Belize, faked a heart attack in a Guatemalan detention center and admits playing the "crazy card," says he's now ready for his next adventure: a return to Silicon Valley.

At age 67, McAfee is promising to launch a new cybersecurity company that will make the Internet safer for everyone.

"My new technology is going to provide a new type of Internet, a decentralized, floating and moving Internet that is impossible to hack, impossible to penetrate and vastly superior in terms of its facility and neutrality. It solves all of our security concerns," McAfee said in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.